The Central Nevadan. [volume] (Battle Mountain, Nev.) 1885-1907, 1887-09-22
A WONDERFUL WOMAN.


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writes New Yorker to the Philadel-
phia Press. :" saw a little woman,
who, at the first glance, would not
tempt the eye to rest upon her an in
stant, plain everyday little woman
of the kind men of sense most admire,
Of The kind that supplies the world
with good mothers and wives-one of
those quiet, modest, ladylike bodies
that one sees 60 many thousands of il,
:he big cities without really noting
them unless second glance reveals
the genteel plainness of their attire,
the trimness of their figures and the
almost shy preoccupation of their
minds. Yet. if one lived in an age Of
inarvels, or Of brigands, and this un-
impressive little figure was stolen from
the city and held for ransom, she could
bring her captors S25, 900, 900 aye,
four times ms much--and without i'm
poverishing her family. For, as she
was pointed out to me, was told she
was Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt,
relict Of tho man who, when he lived,
was the richest man on earth. And
yet she wore no diamonds, showed no
CLINT Of gold or silver from head to
feet, and she was walking the
rest of US.
Some few very rich persons are
interesting in spite Of their wealth.
She is admirable appat from hers-in
herself. Important, rather than inter-
estipg, is the word to apply to her
career. Neither she nor her husband
forsaw--perhaps they never since
thought Of 1.-THE consequence of her
bringing into that stolid, accretive
Dutch blood the admixture of her
distinctly differ. temperament. She
was Miss Kissam. daughter of an
American clergyman whose stock was,
l think. originally English. She had
the extreme good fortune to marry
Vanderbilt when he was working for
his father for 81 900 a year, poor, de-
pendent, aud as thoroughly in awe uf
the old Commodore as when he was a
lad. She married Bill as he was
called, when he had no thought of any
thing but farming. Welded thus to
hard work, simple fare and the pro-
verbal Dutch duty Of constant mother
hood. her husbands ambition enforced
Strengthened circumstances upon both,
for on taking full charge of the farm,
he heavily morigaged the land ta get
the means to develop it. In those
years her part was to work and save
with might and main, and te fee. the
care aud pain of rapidly increasing
family. Amid these circumstances her
character developed, and amid them
her boys and girls were born-all of
them to work.
" All their present millions would
not buy them what this gained for
them, because with those conditions
came modesty. conference.-the disci-
pline of childhood in tho family OF a
thrifty, hard-headed workingman and
their father was 81 mu n of working.
man that it is the firm belief of every
Vanderbilt that he killed himself
finally by ov.rwork But quite equal
to this training was the mothers blood
in their veins. which tempered the
Vanderbilt ma ure and broadened it in
channels leal ng far away from the
good enough. hut altogether narrow,
Hnllapdsh qualities If the Wander
bilts. The old Dutch stock Of the entire
valley Of the Hudson is all alike. It's
qualities except the grossly sensual
ones-are mainly admirable and calcu-
lated to keep the descendants far from
the poor.house. You see these people
in great numbers in Albany, Newburg
and Poughkeepsie, and they are all
heavy eaters, stalwart drinkers. men,
bers Of big families, and rich. You do
no. zee among them the love of litera-
ture, and except fashionable fond
ness for ant, any public spirit chat is
not either hard to move or ostenta-
tious. All distinct stocks, such as
that, need lcavoning, and that is what
Mrs. Vanderbilt. did for her part Of
that stock. Her daughters are some
thing more than mere women, and she
helped them into good marriages. The
boys are all better than mere money
grabbers they are ambitious beyond
and apart from that. =
"She bore Vanderbilt eight chill